[billpg]

If I were appointed name-taker in that situation, I would never actually take any names, only ever reporting that everyone remained silent.

Reporting someone for punishment, even if deserved, would only ever come back badly on me. (Unless I'm missing some incentive for reporting someone, in which case I need to ask what would deter me from wrongly reporting someone just to get the reward.)

[potatote]

Your suggested approach was exactly what I did when I had gone through a similar system in Myanmar as the OP described above, where lazy teachers leave managing the class to students among themselves.

Stay as neutral as possible so that it doesn't bite back at you when the name-taker is someone else. It worked for the most part because my classmates would start recommending me to be the name taker and in return, I told them to not make too much noise when talking during teacher's absence.

[xxs]

Even if you'd be able to keep your integrity and not play the "game", likely there would be another one to rat anyways.

Similar system did exist in east Europe before the wall fell. Major part of population used to report one another...

[lambdadmitry]

It's not that simple. There are two very different kinds of "ratting out":

1. Reporting a crime to the police so they can check and sort it out if needed. This is extremely prevalent in Western societies and seems predicated on trust in the police to do the right thing. Examples: people reporting screams for help they overhear from a street; drivers reporting erratic behavior of other drivers on the road.

2. Knowingly reporting a thought crime to overzealous authorities that will severely punish for that crime, sometimes knowingly falsely, sometimes for your own benefit. Example: telling your local uchastkovuy that your noisy neighbors were doing anti-soviet jokes in the hope of getting rid of them.

In a lot of post-soviet countries there was a lot the latter and none of the former (in fact, a lot of Russians think the former is "ratting out" and is immoral). In Russia there were numerous cases of people being killed or raped in places where dozens or hundreds could hear the screams for help, with no one actually calling the police. On the other hand, you can be pretty sure that shady stuff happening on a Western city street will lead to police response.

It's kinda hard to tell where the exact boundary between those two kinds of behaviors is, especially lately with all the pushback against drug prohibition (is reporting someone smoking a spliff in Stockholm moral?). But it exists.

[Fnoord]

The "you don't rat" mentality is also very prevalent in ghettos or "the street" (as well as in left-wing activism circles). A well written account on it is the HBO series The Wire.

[sarah180]

Integrity means lying to your teacher? I'm not sure that's the word I'd use.

[Retra]

Integrity doesn't mean what you think it means then. You can be honest in upholding your principles by lying to an authority.

[checkyoursudo]

I think it's pretty commonly understood that integrity can include not compromising your values in the face of consequences. Often, the value against lying is fairly weak compared to other values. In fact, contemplating lying to authorities to prevent another's (often unjust) punishment is a pretty common topic in explaining different philosophical systems.

It's really just a variation on the trolley problem.